Here Be Dragons

The myths and Legends of Alor, East Nusa Tenggara

Originally published in Bali and Beyond Magazine, June 2011

http://www.scribd.com/doc/56436680/Bali-Beyond-Magazine-June-2011-edition

Everyone knows that the map of East Nusa Tenggara, the chain of beautiful and culturally diverse islands to the east of Bali, could be marked with the words “here be dragons”. Komodo, the first landfall in the province for travelers coming from the west, is famed for its huge reptiles. But if local legends are to be believed there are more dragons far to the east at the other end of East Nusa Tenggara, in the remote island of Alor…

Alor is the last link in the stepping-stone chain of islands that runs all the way east from Java. On the map it’s an insignificant place, smaller than Bali and dwarfed by neighboring Timor. But this island, with its fringe of white beaches and its dark, myth-filled hills, is one of the most culturally intriguing islands in all of Indonesia, and a place with more than a few wild stories to boot…

Alor was once the preserve only of travelers prepared to brave fifteen-hour rides on overloaded ferries, but these days, with daily flights from Kupang, there’s a nascent tourism industry. The majority of visitors who step down at Alor’s little airport are there to dive in the deep, clear waters that surround the island. But this is also a spectacularly rewarding place to explore traditional villages, and to dabble in the weird and wonderful mythology of the Alorese people.

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Alor’s capital is the little township of Kalabahi at the head of a long, narrow bay flanked by steep green hills. Kalabahi is the best base for exploring the surrounding countryside, and you don’t have to travel far beyond the town before you run into the first traditional villages.

 At least part of the reason why Alor is so culturally complex is the staggering linguistic diversity. Though the total population of the island is well under 200,000, as many as 17 totally separate languages are spoken here and on neighboring Pantar, and distinct dialects are numbered in the hundreds. Locals like to say, without too much hyperbole, that in Alor every village has its own language – and every village has its own unique myths too.

But there are some connecting threads that unite this Babel-like island.

Inland villages are mostly Christian, while on the blue shoreline Muslims predominate. But for both communities dowries are paid with moko drums. These bronze kettledrums are thought to have originated in the ancient Dongson civilization of northern Vietnam. No one knows how they got to Alor – but locals will tell you they appeared, fully formed from the ground! Another island-wide emblem is the circle of stones at the centre of each village. Known as a misbah, this is the place where the heads of enemies taken during warfare were once placed – for Alor has a violent history. Supposedly pacified by the Dutch in the 1900s, in fact clan wars and even headhunting continued well into the 20th Century. Today there is peace, but the misbah is still the focus of the lego-lego, the Alorese circle dance held to celebrate weddings and other ceremonies.

Alor’s most famous traditional village lies about 15 kilometers east of Kalabahi. The ridge-top fastness of Takpala stands at the end of a steeply rising track through the trees from the coast. The roofs of the houses rise to great peaks of shaggy thatch over platforms of smooth bamboo. Disks of wood stop mice from climbing the foundation poles to get at the food stored above, and in the high roof space the villagers keep their mokos and other sacred heirlooms. Locals work farming little plots cleared from the steep slopes where they grow corn, tobacco and cassava. From the edge of the village a sweeping view of the ocean opens, with the dark hills of Alor’s northwest peninsula rising to the left.

 Up in those hills, where of course the local language is wildly different from the Abui tongue spoken in Takpala, you’ll find more traditional villages, and you’ll also run into the first tales of dragons.

 Monbang, just a few steep kilometers uphill from Kalabahi, is another village of tall thatched houses. The name of the place means “Village of the Dragon”, and at the peaks of the rooftops there are simple carvings of a serpent-like creature. In Alorese tradition, these carvings represent the guardian spirits of the community in the form of a dragon.

 Beyond Monbang a potholed road leads through the cool green shade of the forest. White churches stand in little clearings and there is a smell of wood smoke and fresh coffee. The road leads eventually to the peaceful hilltop of Omtel, the highest spot in this part of Alor, and location of what locals claim is the grave of the first man in the world – a 20-metre-tall giant!

 But the best place to chase tales of dragons is in the villages on the cobalt-blue shores of Kalabahi Bay. In the little Muslim fishing communities here the dragon is more than just a myth. Locals swear that a great scaly beast really does live beneath the waters of the bay, and if you ask around you’ll probably meet someone who claims to have seen it.

 The cultural focus of the coastal communities is the village of Bampalola, on a high mountainside with spectacular views across the bay to the little conical island of Pura, and to the dark hills of Pantar beyond.

Bampalola itself is a modern village, but a path through the terraced maize fields leads to the spectacular ceremonial complex of Lakatuli. This spot, occupying a perfect defensive position at the end of a razor-sharp ridge, hints at the troubled past of Alor. Today no one lives in the village, but its fabulously decorated traditional buildings are still the scene of ceremonies tied to the harvests and the changing of the seasons. This is a place of rituals that long predate the arrival of either Islam or Christianity in Alor. The buildings, raised above the ground on thick wooden posts, are decorated with elaborate carvings, picked out in white, black and ochre, and there are dragons carved into beams and joists.

 There are more dragon carvings downhill in the villages of Alor Kecil and Alu Kai, as talismans over doorways, as motifs woven into ikat cloth, and as a mythical presence in the waters offshore.

 According to clan elders the people of this part of Alor are descended from a man who rose fully formed from the ground – like the moko drums – in Bampalola. He descended to the coast where he married a princess of the Sea People, a clan of mermen who, the story goes, still have their own villages in the depths offshore. And the dragon, which rose from the ground before the first man, is the guardian of the community.

 At the end of the stony little peninsula that juts out like a crooked tooth at the mouth of Kalabahi Bay, on a shoreline of scaly black basalt rocks, is a shrine to the dragon. Decorated with carvings, this is a place where the people of Alor come to seek the power and protection of the beast, bringing offerings of coconuts and freshly slaughtered chickens and goats.

Just offshore stands the little islet of Pulau Kepa, location of some of Alor’s best dive sites. With all those stories of dragons and Sea People, even those who come to Alor in search only of bright corals, manta rays, sharks and sunfish, would be well advised to keep an eye out for even more fabulous beasts in clear depths of the bay…

© Tim Hannigan 2011

 

In Pursuit of the Dragons of Alor

Traditional belief, myths and legends in Alor, Nusa Tenggara

Originally published in the Jakarta Globe, 06/05/10

http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/culture/in-pursuit-of-the-dragons-of-alor/373491

In the fishing village of Lanleki on the island of Alor I met an old man who had seen a dragon. His name was Achmad; he wore a white Haji’s skullcap and he told his tale simply, sitting in the narrow front room of his little house. Outside the hot wind rustled in the palm trees and the children of Lanleki jostled in the doorway, more interested in the foreign visitor than in hearing Haji Achmad’s familiar story.
He had seen the dragon forty years ago, he said, long before he made the Haj pilgrimage to Mecca. He had been walking along the narrow path that leads to Lanleki when the dragon emerged from the sea and chased him through the trees. It had horns like a buffalo and seven flickering tongues…

Alor is a place of pale beaches and dark, myth-filled hills. The most easterly landfall in the stuttering island chain of Nusa Tenggara, like many parts of Indonesia it has gone through incredible changes in the last century. In 1938 the American anthropologist Cora Du Bois visited and recorded an island where people knew little of money and spoke no Indonesian. Though there was a long-established halo of Islam around the coast, in the hills Protestant missionaries had met little success and most people worshiped only the spirits of the countryside. Dutch colonialists had supposedly pacified the island at the turn of the 20th Century, but clan warfare and even headhunting were still very much current concepts.
Seventy years later roads have snaked into the hills, whitewashed churches have sprouted in remote villages and most of the population has become nominally Christian. The island capital, Kalabahi, has filled with buzzing motorbikes; there are daily flights from Kupang and even a nascent tourist industry. But as I was to find out, Alor is still a place where old beliefs and customary adat traditions hold strong, and where there is no distinction between history and myth. This is an island that could still be marked on the map with the words “here be dragons”...

I first heard about dragons in Probul, a village in the hills behind Lanleki. An old man there had told me that in the days before Christianity there had been many dragons – he called them naga. Mostly they were invisible, but they were dangerous if not appeased. Then there was Haji Achmad’s story, in which the dragon was unmistakably a real thing. If I wanted to learn more about dragons, Haji Achmad told me, I should go to the village of Alor Kecil, on the other side of Kalabahi Bay.

Alor is smaller than Bali, and with a population of just 168,000, but it is perhaps the most linguistically diverse place in Indonesia. As many as 17 separate, mutually incomprehensible languages are spoken here, and distinct dialects are numbered in the hundreds.
There is a similar diversity of culture, with the creation myths of one village often meaning nothing to the people of the next. But there are certain threads that run throughout the island. The moko is a bronze, hourglass-shaped kettledrum, thought to have originated in the ancient Dongson civilization of northern Vietnam. Just how the moko reached Alor, where the “lost wax technique” used to decorate the drums was never known, is a mystery – locals claim that they sprung fully-formed from the ground – but they are a key motif of the island. When the Cora Du Bois visited they were the main form of currency and even today they are used to pay wedding dowries.
Another common connection is the misbah, a round altar of rough stones at the heart of each village. This is still the focus of the lego-lego, the Alorese circle dance performed at weddings and other celebrations, and in the not-too-distant past it was the place where heads taken in warfare were placed. And now it seemed that I had stumbled on another connecting thread – the dragon.

Alor Kecil lies at the western tip of the rugged peninsula that bulges to the north of Kalabahi Bay. Offshore rides the little islet of Pulau Kepa, location of Alor’s first dive resort; in mid-channel rises the volcanic cone of Pura Island, while beyond it is the dark coastline of Pantar.
Like Lanleki, Alor Kecil was a Muslim village with modern concrete houses and tin-roofed mosques in the shade of huge banyan trees. But here too there was a misbah, with a few buffalo skulls resting on its weathered stones in lieu of human heads. There were rumah adat – the lineage houses of each of Alor Kecil’s five clans – and as I picked my way through the village I spotted dragons everywhere. There were dragons carved into doorframes; dragons woven into pieces of local ikat cloth, and statues of dragons outside the modern community hall.
Sitting outside the lineage house of the Suku Bao Raja, Alor Kecil’s royal clan, I met a young man named Jason. I asked him about the dragons. The dragon, he said, was the protector of the village. It had come originally from the ground in the hills to the north, but today it lived in the sea. I repeated Haji Achmad’s story and Jason was unsurprised.
“People do see the dragon, but not often. It’s usually outsiders who see it, not locals,” he said.
The dragon was not the only mythical presence around Alor Kecil; there were also Sea People. In ancient times, the story goes, the Sea People were regular visitors to their brethren on the shore, and though these days they stay beneath the surface, one of Alor Kecil’s tribes, the Mang Lolong, still claim to maintain a connection with them. A popular rumor has it that a few years ago a foreign tourist, diving near Pulau Kepa spotted an underwater village full of mermen dancing the lego-lego in the blue depths beyond the edge of the reef.
Jason said that all of the people of Alor Kecil and the surrounding settlements are descended from a man who rose from the earth in a place called Bampalola in the hills above the coast. Following his directions I traveled up a steep track that wound between the ridges.
Bampalola itself was a modern village with a school and a mosque, but a kilometer downhill through the maize fields, on a high promontory at the end of a razor-sharp ridge, stood the old village, Lakatuli. Many villages in Alor shifted from defensive hilltops to more convenient locations once the age of clan warfare was over; no one lived in Lakatuil now, but the place was still used for adat ceremonies. Tall thatched roofs rose above bamboo-floored platforms. Elaborate carvings on beams and banisters were picked out in white and ochre, and there were dragons chiseled into the woodwork.
Looking at them I was reminded of a grainy black-and-white photo in the anthropologist Cora Du Bois’ 1944 book, The People of Alor. It was a picture of an Ulenai, the carving used in that era to represent the village guardian spirit. Though the Ulenai lacked the stylistic touches clearly borrowed from Chinese art that I had seen on the carvings in Alor Kecil and Bampalola, it was very obviously a dragon.
Du Bois had written of ancestor myths and guardian spirits that “this whole concept will undoubtedly become the center of revivalistic cults when Alorese culture crumbles as it inevitably will under the impact of foreign colonization”. But it seemed to me that nothing had crumbled, let alone been revived. The idea of the dragon as a powerful protector, and a real entity, had probably never faded from the scene in the villages here.

From Bampalola I returned to the coast and the hamlet of Alu Kai, just east of Alor Kecil. In the front room of a clan house with a carved dragon in the corner two of the village elders, Pak Amir, and Pak Mo, told me more about dragons and sea people – they called all this “history” rather than “legend” and made no distinction between the wilder tales and the stories of the arrival of Islam in Alor from Ambon and Makassar.
The dragon first appeared from the earth in Bampalola many centuries ago, before the birth of mankind, they said. The first man rose in the same place later and his descendents traveled downhill to the shore where the founder of Alu Kai hamlet, Jai Manu, married a princess of the mysterious Sea People named Eko Sari. Pak Amir and Pak Mo themselves, it seemed, were half-merman!
While they talked children gathered in the doorway, just as they had done in Lanleki. Pak Amir smiled.
“It’s important for old men to talk; if the old men just keep silent then how will the children know their own history?” he said.

There was one more place to visit in my pursuit of the dragon myths of Alor. At the tip of the stony headland beyond Alor Kecil, Pak Amir had said, was a shrine dedicated to the dragon. Chickens and goats were routinely tossed into the sea there as offerings, he said.
Leaving the road and the houses behind I picked my way through stony fields and thorny scrub. It was late afternoon now and a dense, humid heat had risen. Insects buzzed in the undergrowth and I could hear the sea, hissing onto the rocks nearby. I lost my way in the web of pathways until I met a tall, barefoot man named Haider who led me to the shrine.
It was a small structure, a low tin roof sheltering two shelves painted with long, black dragons, and on the top level a heavier, cruder dragon carving. The ground around the shrine was scattered with old coconut husks. A bunch of dried goats’ ears hung on a rusty nail. It felt like a place of dark magic.
People often came here to make offerings to the dragon, Haider said, not only local villagers but also big men, police chiefs and politicians from Kalabahi looking for the protection of the mysterious beast.
The spot where the dragon was fed lay beyond the shrine, a ledge of scaly, reptilian black rock over deep blue water. The dried carcass of a chicken hung from a branch. It was a strange, faintly unsettling place, and as the afternoon sun slanted away over the hills of Pantar I peered down into the water, half-expecting to see a horned, seven-tongued serpent rise from the depths. In the 21st Century the myths and legends of Alor are, it seems, still powerful enough to impress a skeptic…

© Tim Hannigan 2010